Microsoft competes with Google in many areas but has still chosen to create a video channel on Youtube to promote Microsoft products. While this seems odd it could be an effort to reach potential customers in enemy territory. What most websites reporting about the ads are reporting is that the PR guys decided to leave the comment function activated which invites many comments that are criticizing Microsoft.

Categories: Music and Video, Operating Systems, Windows

The time of patching the Windows Vista Registry to be able to download the first release candidate of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is over. Microsoft made the download of the Service Pack 1 Release Candidate 1 publicly available. The funny thing is that the process to download the Service Pack 1 of Windows Vista is almost the same that we described earlier already.

Categories: Operating Systems, Security, Software, Windows

Are you 18 years of age or older and living in the United States ? Are you the owner of the computer and use either Windows XP or Windows Vista as your main operating system ? Then you might apply to join the Windows Feedback Program which will supply you with a free Microsoft application of your choice if your application gets accepted.

Categories: Operating Systems, The Web, Windows

If you did update your version of Windows Vista with the latest release candidate of Service Pack 1 you might have noticed an annoying text in the lower right corner of your operating system stating Windows Vista (TM) Evaluation Copy. Build 6001 even if you are running a genuine version of Windows Vista.

Categories: Hacking, Operating Systems, Windows

While Windows XP and Vista offer a way to pin files to the Start Menu both operating systems do not offer a way to pin folders to it. You might have noticed that a right-click on a file on your hard drive does not give the option to pin it to the Start Menu as well, it only appears if you press the shift key while right-clicking the file.

Categories: Operating Systems, Windows

Kline over at Connected Internet posted an interesting article detailing 10 simple ways to speed up Windows Vista. I actually tweaked Windows Vista right when I unpacked my notebook which had Windows Vista Home Premium preinstalled, got rid of a lot of useless stuff that I did not need anyway.

Categories: Knowledge, Operating Systems, Windows

Several softwares have been released today in new versions and I thought it would be nice to give you a quick overview over some of the more interesting applications that have been updated. All of them have a large user base and it is not unlikely that you are one of the users.

Categories: Operating Systems, Tools, Windows

The leaked patches for Microsoft’s new operating system Windows Vista made their round on many Internet sites and blogs last week and caused some heated discussions whether one should install them right away or wait for the official announcement on the Microsoft website.

Categories: Operating Systems, Windows

Maybe you have already encountered the strange behavior that it takes much longer to copy large files in Windows Vista than in Windows XP. You thought that the change from XP to Vista would at least be not a disadvantage speed wise but Vista somehow seems to have a problem copying large files. This happens especially with mapped drives but it could also be that you witness network disconnects.

The problem is caused by a new feature called Auto Tuning which is by default enabled in Microsoft Windows Vista. What Auto Tuning does is that it reacts on changes in the network by tuning the receive windows size. The solution would be of course to disable Auto Tuning in Vista. Some users reported that disabling Auto Tuning had a positive effect on their ability to connect to services such as Windows Live Messenger which did not work before.

Categories: Operating Systems, Windows